Geoff Berner is the author of Festival Man and the graphic novel We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians. A singer-songwriter and accordion player, he has released six albums and toured in seventeen countries. He lives in Vancouver.
Geoff Berner is a Canadian singer-songwriter and accordion player that I discovered recently when my husband sent me a link to his Bandcamp and told me: “You are going to love this!”. My husband knows me very well, because I fell in love with Mr. Berner’s music after just a couple of songs. He’s weird, he’s funny and he is incredibly inspiring! Imagine how thrilled I was when I saw that he was coming to Montreal for a gig! They sold this little booklet at the merch table, and I picked it up hoping to find a few practical tips on accordion playing, because I am trying to teach myself to play this strange instrument – with varied levels of success…
Well, as it turns out, this book is not really about playing the accordion, but it’s a wonderful glimpse into the slightly unhinged brain of Geoff Berner: his dark humor actually has a bit of a Zen bend to it. He puts a lot of emphasis on learning important life lessons from history… which may be applicable to playing the accordion, but maybe they can’t; it doesn’t really matter anyway. My favorite part is when he discusses the importance of not getting an accordion made by any people that committed genocide, and that you should never get a beige accordion because beige is the color of pure evil…
I might have to carry that tiny little book around with me and re-read bits of it for a while, because while it contains zero practical advice on how to play the accordion, it does have some moments of brilliant insight that deserve to be remembered.
If Geoff Berner goes to your town, go see him play. You will have the best time you’ve had at a gig in ages.
This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to play the accordion or succeed at life. You know it's an excellent book because it comes with three blank pages for notes and two (TWO!) pages numbered "20."
Berner brings his experience and expertise as a professional (and famous!) accordion player to bear in providing solid tips on how to pick an accordion, learning to play, and what to do once famous. Written with humor and plenty of illuminating anecdotes, this tract is both entertaining and informative. And not only for people wanting to learn how to be an accordion player!